On a rainy day last week, the scene at Microsoft’s campus in Mountain View, California, looked rather incongruous: several dozen developers sat in an auditorium, many of them taking notes on Apple laptops, while another programmer, also using a Mac, stood behind a podium flanked with Microsoft’s blocky logo.
This wasn’t a secret meeting of Microsoft rebels; it was Microsoft’s attempt to lure developers who have been building apps for Apple’s incredibly popular iOS platform, which runs on the iPad and iPhone, over to its Windows 8 and Windows Phone platforms.